Reaping the Souls of the Cursed

By Ellf

Chapter One: Retrospective

Disclaimer: Insert standard disclaimer here: Slot A goes into peg B, and all that jazz.

She ran. That thing was following her, and she didn't know the reason. What the hell was it? She needed to get to the seer. She knew that he/she could help her. Damn, how was it following her? Wouldn't someone help her out? She couldn't let it eat her. The seer was likely at the school at this time, and all she had to do was turn down this street and then he/she would be able to stop this monster. He had helped her before, when her grave was disturbed. There! There he was, in his glory, the seer!

Ranma knew something was off that day. For one thing, the fiancées seemed to be avoiding him, and no matter what he had said since that day Akane seemed to refuse to get mad. Ranma shuddered. His mind lost focus for a sheer second as he felt something before returning to the subject of Akane. Of course, their discussion after the wedding blew up could have something to do with her behavior, and the fact that it was the Monday after the foolish thing could be why the fiancées were behaving the way they were as well.

Something was off though. What could it have been? Ranma mused on the fence as Akane walked next to him on their way to school.

"Hey Akane, I'm going to run ahead to see if Kuno is planning anything stupid today." Without even waiting for Akane's acknowledgement, Ranma dashed off. As he approached the school, something tugged on the edge of his senses. What was it? Looking to his left, he could see the shape of a little girl he had helped the week before Kiima had shown up. This girl appeared to be about ten years old at most, and she had a chain sticking out of her chest. The chain had a few links left on it, but it signified one thing to Ranma, she was indeed a ghost.

He didn't know why, but ever since he learned the Mokou Takabisha he'd been able to see ghosts clearly. And he didn't mean the ghosts that wanted to be seen, but rather he was able to see the ghosts that weren't usually able to be seen. It was like a second sight, but not quite.

"Ranma-niisan, I need your help!" Oh, that was right, she had taken to calling him big brother.

"What's wrong, kid?" Ranma never asked her about her name, he felt he didn't need to know it. Hopefully she'd move on to heaven soon.

"It's horrible, this big monster is chasing me and-" Her quick speech was cut off by what sounded like a terrible roar that reverberated throughout the area near the school. Ranma glanced ahead towards the school and saw that Kuno and the rest of the Kendo club seemed to be waiting for something on the front lawn, but for some reason they turned tail and ran as the roar resounded through the area. Whatever it was, it didn't sound like Taro, nor did it sound like the Orochi.

Then he turned to see the source of the roar, and paled in shock. Whatever this thing was, it was nothing like he had ever seen before. It was a big misshapen humanoid creature that was wearing a pure white mask. The hole in its chest was where its heart should have been, but he could see right through it. Somehow he felt like he had fought a creature like this before, but he couldn't remember where or when. Regardless, as his father said, it was a martial artist's duty to exterminate monsters, and to protect the weak. Sure, his father only did the former for a quick buck, but that was one of the old man's lessons that held some merit. The weak this time happened to be this little ghost girl. Even if he was the only one who could see the girl, it just meant he was the only one that could protect her.

Ranma smirked. "It'll be alright, kid. Run off somewhere safe, I'm takin' this thing down!"

The creature glanced down at Ranma. "Pitiful Human, you have so little spirit energy that you'll barely do for a snack."

"I think you'll find that I have more than enough to deal with you, bakemono!" Ranma stood relaxed, with his hands in his pockets, planning on letting his opponent take the first move.

"Your overconfidence will be your death, boy! Take this!" The creature swung its arm at Ranma, who suddenly was hard pressed to dodge. It kept swinging, faster and faster, until finally it struck Ranma, sending him into the school's outer wall, causing it to crumble around his body. "How do you like that, boy?"

As Ranma pulled his mostly unharmed body out of the wall, he smirked. "You hit like a girl. Now it's my turn!" The pigtailed martial artist quickly jumped at the creature, launching an Amaguriken speed barrage of punches at its abdomen.

"Your punches have no spiritual force behind them, boy. You'll have to do better than that to kill me! Now I come!" The creature and Ranma soon became engaged in an exchange of blows and blocks. Ranma's skill was obviously far above that of the creature, as for every blow that he blocked, Ranma managed to get two to three punches or kicks in on the creature.

Ranma fell back panting... what was this creature? It took nearly all of his energy just to stand and yet the creature itself seemed perfectly fine. Not only that, but Ranma's arms and legs nearly froze as they touched the creature's body. It felt like touching death itself. This was it, his entire chance now rode on a single strike, but he didn't want to touch it again. A smirk found its way onto Ranma's face. He'd beat it, after all, he was Ranma Saotome, and he did not LOSE! Ranma let all his confidence surge to the forefront. "You want spiritual force, monster? I'll give it to you in spades! MOKOU TAKABISHA!"

"What's this? Kidou?" A golden ball of energy sped towards the mask of the creature, causing a loud reverberating explosion upon impact. Smoke and dust hid the monster's body from view.

"Hmm... it's never done that before. Usually it's just a punching force." The dust began to clear. "No... that's impossible... I put everything I had into that attack." Ranma's voice wavered with a bit of fear.

The creature, unharmed, leaped at Ranma and with one mighty blow to Ranma's chest, sending him into the wall once more, the creature began to speak with its deep, echoing voice, taunting him. "Impressive though that was... It still lacked pressure. With pitiful reiatsu such as yours, I'm surprised you can see me at all. No matter, it's time to end this battle, and I will snack upon your soul."

The creature pulled back its fist, preparing for a punch at the tired, panting Ranma. Ranma instinctively raised his arms as if to block, but his arms were placed wrong for blocking a fist with just arms, but rather as if he were holding a katana. It threw its jab, aiming for the obvious opening between Ranma's arms...

"Hey look at Saotome; he's out on the yard doing some strange kata, not even fighting Kuno."

"I don't know, it looks more like he's fighting something to me."

"He IS fighting something, but I can barely make it out."

"Quit making stuff up."

"Look! Saotome collapsed!"

Indeed, Ranma's body had fallen to the ground as the random student had mentioned, his body bouncing off the ground like a lifeless doll. However that was only half the picture. As the creature had swatted at that open space between Ranma's arms, it was stopped with a resounding clang of reverberating metal. The pigtailed martial artist's physical body indeed fell to the ground, but Ranma's self still stood there in front of the creature, holding a katana in place to block its punch.

Taking a look down at himself, he found he was dressed in a black hakama, tabi covering his feet, and he was wearing straw sandals. Attached to his side was the sheath to the katana, and what's more? He could breath proper again, fully revitalized. Ranma was unsure of why his clothes changed, but he wasn't going to waste this second wind. Preparing to attack the creature again, he glanced up at the monster, a look of cold calculation coming over his eyes and a smirk finding its way to his face.

"A Shinigami? How? No matter! Your pitiful existence will end soon Shinigami or no!" The creature pushed harder on Ranma's katana with his fist, causing dust to come out from beneath his feet as the pigtailed boy slowly was pushed back.

"Really now, try this on for size!" Ranma wasn't one to usually use weapons, but when given something that made it so he didn't have to touch the creature; he was quite prepared to use it. Jumping back, he disengaged from the creature's fist only to bound forward and strike its mask with a cross-slash, grazing it.

Another horrifying roar resounded through the area as the creature swung at the pigtailed boy again with its meaty fist, only to miss once more and get slashed across the arm. It moved forward with its mask, hopeful to take a bite out of Ranma before he could cut again. Ranma dodged gracefully and horizontally slashed through the mask, all the way through. The creature roared once more in pain, and its mask shattered. It began to dissipate into nothing but particles and Ranma sheathed his sword.

"Well, that was interesting..." The pigtailed boy heard the school bell ring and then shouted, "Oh crap! Hinako-sensei's going to drain me again." Ranma then ran inside, leaving his unoccupied body on the school lawn.

Ranma entered the classroom just as Hinako-sensei began to call roll. He took his seat and waited for his name to be called.

"Saotome Ranma?"

Ranma raised his hand and said strongly, "Hai!"

"Saotome Ranma? Is that boy going to be late again?" Hinako's childish face contorted in confusion.

"I'm right here, Sensei." Ranma spoke to Hinako, waving his hand in front of her face, hoping to catch her attention. Unfortunately, it was to no avail, the small woman acted as if she was looking right through him.

"That delinquent! I'll drain him as soon as he gets in!"

"Anou... Sensei?" A quiet girl spoke up as she was looking out the window. "Isn't that him out there on the lawn?"

Ranma looked dubiously at the girl before exclaiming loudly, "I'm right here!"

"They won't hear you, you know." A voice resounded through Ranma's skull. It was calm, feminine, familiar, and held a lilt to it that was almost humorous. "They can't even see you right now. Not even your precious Akane-sama can see you, Ranma-kun."

"Who's there? Show yourself!" Ranma started looking around the classroom, trying to find who was addressing him.

A light giggle echoed through Ranma's head. "Ranma-kun, I'm hurt. You don't know me? How can you not know who I am? I am a part of you, after all."

A cold chill went down Ranma's spine, the voice couldn't be... "How dare you insult me by calling me a curse, Ranma-kun? Just for that, I won't tell you my name until you remember it yourself!" The voice sounded miffed, but then it turned playful again. "You better get back in your body before they declare you clinically dead."

Ranma looked over at where the class itself had gathered. They were pointing out the window at something on the lawn. He looked in the direction that the pointing was in, and saw it. "Holy shit! That's my body!"

"Tsk, tsk, Ranma-kun. Get in it before they come and get you." Ranma heeded the voice this time and leapt from the window to find he was much lighter than before. After all, a spirit has very little mass, and as such is less affected by gravity. Normally he would have had to jump to the ground and then run to his body, but instead he managed to land directly next to it.

Glancing down at it, a few questions rose to his mind. Was he really dead? Who was that voice? How the hell did Ryoga show up wearing that pink tutu last week? More importantly, how was he supposed to get back into his body, as the voice told him?

Never one to do anything halfway, Ranma jumped onto where his body lay and was quickly sucked into it. Blinking a couple of times, he stood up, glancing around at the students who had gathered, ready to take him to the nurse's office.

Scratching the back of his head at the base of his pigtail, Ranma chuckled nervously before posing incredulously and stating with false bravado. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Don'tcha worry 'bout me. After all, I'm the best, ain't I?"

Akane looked on with not just a little anger, but a bit of worry as well. "Ranma! Don't make like it was nothing, you were unconscious out there, you jerk!"

"I said I'm fine, Tomboy. Nothing to worry about." "Insensitive little Ranma-kun. Insulting your Akane-sama like that." Great. The voice was back, he'd think it would be gone after that little hallucination.

"Nope. I'm here to stay. You can't get rid of me that easily." For some reason Ranma had the image of a super-deformed Ranma-chan giving him the red-eye and sticking her tongue out at him in his mind.

"..listening to me? Honestly, I don't know why I try."

"I'm sure Ranchan's alright, Sugar. He looks like he's deep in thought though."

"He's deep in something."

A cold wind blew as Happosai made his daily rounds, causing him to pause just long enough for the group of angry women he was being chased by to catch up with him. As the women began to stomp on him and steal his liberated silky darlings away from the old ecchi, Happosai glanced in the direction of Furinkan High School.

It seems like a Hollow's presence was just purified. Happosai grinned as the women took his beauteous silky pleasures away from him. Hopping up from the ground, he bounded across the rooftops towards the Tendo Dojo. "I best get prepared... Nodoka's going to need help training that boy."

(End Chapter)Author's Notes: Well... there you have it, Chapter 1 of Reaping the Souls of the Cursed. Yet another chapter that has been sitting on the backburner mostly complete for a while. Hopefully I'll be able to release the second chapter soon.